3 months out
I'm a week short of 3 months from the surgery. Bad news is that I've been having problems with slow weight loss. Good news is that I may have figured out how to improve the situation.
(I am so foolish for staying away from the forum all this time--I need the support and the ideas.)
I gained so much weight over the past ten years for two reasons: (1) medications causing weight gain, (2) bad eating habits, in particular eating to soothe emotional and physical pain.
I have a lot of emotional and physical pain. I have chronic anxiety and depression that is only half-treated by medication. I have chronic muscle pain (fibromyalgia) and chronic fatigue. Sometimes when I feel crummy, eating is the only thing that is guaranteed to bring pleasure. I sometimes feel a total absence of other pleasures in my life, so the craving to eat a lot of comfort food is very strong.
The fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue has been much WORSE since surgery. It's been dreadful. I just realized this week that it might be related to toxins that the fat cells release into the body.
After the surgery, at first I could eat very little. After six or seven weeks, though, it seemed like I could eat a lot (at least a lot relative to what I expected). So gradually I started eating more and returning to some old habits, like mindless fast eating. Believe it or not, I don't get indigestion from any food even when I eat quickly. I thought that part of the surgery was going to force me away from old drives because I thought I would be vomiting if I ate the wrong things and ate quickly. But that is not the case.
Also, I am struggling with hunger. This surgery did NOT take away my hunger like promised. Maybe it's the medications creating an extra problem. I don't know. I still get intensely hungry within 45 minutes after eating. I don't think my pyloric valve ever closes because I never stay full for long.
So combine these facts and I am not losing weight any more. Fortunately I lost 40 pounds, but it has more or less stopped.
Okay, so that's the bad news. The good news is that I just discovered that I can eat much less without reducing satiety. I guess that's obvious, but somehow I thought that as long as I didn't feel full, I should keep eating and that way I would stay satiated longer. Basically after eating I feel hunger within 45 minutes, but I found out that if I eat a tiny amount, it's still around 45 minutes before I am hungry again. Today I'm experimenting with eating very tiny meals every 45 mintues to an hour.
Good news is that my hunger is no worse than usual even though I'm eating less overall. Maybe that's how it is supposed to work. Maybe after the surgery my hunger is not related to calories consumed but is related to the stomach being empty, and that keeping something in the stomach, no matter how small it is, fixes the hunger.
To fill up without calories, I'm also sipping fiber very slowly. At first I thought it would fill me up if I chugged it. (That's what I used to do before surgery to try to fill up.) It seems like it actually works better to sip tiny amounts every ten minutes or so, as I discovered today.
Mike
(I am so foolish for staying away from the forum all this time--I need the support and the ideas.)
I gained so much weight over the past ten years for two reasons: (1) medications causing weight gain, (2) bad eating habits, in particular eating to soothe emotional and physical pain.
I have a lot of emotional and physical pain. I have chronic anxiety and depression that is only half-treated by medication. I have chronic muscle pain (fibromyalgia) and chronic fatigue. Sometimes when I feel crummy, eating is the only thing that is guaranteed to bring pleasure. I sometimes feel a total absence of other pleasures in my life, so the craving to eat a lot of comfort food is very strong.
The fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue has been much WORSE since surgery. It's been dreadful. I just realized this week that it might be related to toxins that the fat cells release into the body.
After the surgery, at first I could eat very little. After six or seven weeks, though, it seemed like I could eat a lot (at least a lot relative to what I expected). So gradually I started eating more and returning to some old habits, like mindless fast eating. Believe it or not, I don't get indigestion from any food even when I eat quickly. I thought that part of the surgery was going to force me away from old drives because I thought I would be vomiting if I ate the wrong things and ate quickly. But that is not the case.
Also, I am struggling with hunger. This surgery did NOT take away my hunger like promised. Maybe it's the medications creating an extra problem. I don't know. I still get intensely hungry within 45 minutes after eating. I don't think my pyloric valve ever closes because I never stay full for long.
So combine these facts and I am not losing weight any more. Fortunately I lost 40 pounds, but it has more or less stopped.
Okay, so that's the bad news. The good news is that I just discovered that I can eat much less without reducing satiety. I guess that's obvious, but somehow I thought that as long as I didn't feel full, I should keep eating and that way I would stay satiated longer. Basically after eating I feel hunger within 45 minutes, but I found out that if I eat a tiny amount, it's still around 45 minutes before I am hungry again. Today I'm experimenting with eating very tiny meals every 45 mintues to an hour.
Good news is that my hunger is no worse than usual even though I'm eating less overall. Maybe that's how it is supposed to work. Maybe after the surgery my hunger is not related to calories consumed but is related to the stomach being empty, and that keeping something in the stomach, no matter how small it is, fixes the hunger.
To fill up without calories, I'm also sipping fiber very slowly. At first I thought it would fill me up if I chugged it. (That's what I used to do before surgery to try to fill up.) It seems like it actually works better to sip tiny amounts every ten minutes or so, as I discovered today.
Mike
Well, due to the increased muscle pain and fatigue, I was not exercising. Good news is that I've felt physically improved this week, and I've enjoyed doing the exercise bike every day. I use the "interval technique" of aerobic exercise.
Due to anxiety and depression, it's hard not to fixate on hunger and fixate on the fantasy of comfort food and how much that comfort food will ease my mental suffering. I participate in Overeater's Anonymous to help that. It hasn't cured me, but I'm taking baby steps.
Due to anxiety and depression, it's hard not to fixate on hunger and fixate on the fantasy of comfort food and how much that comfort food will ease my mental suffering. I participate in Overeater's Anonymous to help that. It hasn't cured me, but I'm taking baby steps.
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